The subject matter disclosed herein relates to the field of cell isolation and, particularly, to the field of magnetic particle-based cell selection.
Magnetic particle-based cell selection, or more simply referred to as magnetic cell isolation or magnetic cell selection, is a procedure used to isolate cells (e.g., T-cells or stem cells) from a cell mixture. In this procedure, cells in a biological sample (i.e., a cell mixture) are incubated with magnetic particles coated with antibodies or ligands designed to react with a particular surface antigen(s) of a target cell type. The antibodies or ligands recognize and bind to receptors on the surface of the target cell type, and the resulting cell suspension is passed through an external magnetic field generated by a magnetic isolation device. The target cells bound, via the antibodies or ligands, to the magnetic particles, are retained in the magnetic isolation device via magnetic force while the unlabeled cells pass through. With removal from the magnetic field, the target cells of interest can then be collected, thus isolating, or selecting out, the target cell population from the initial cell mixture.